Our movement

Our thinking

Corruption and poor governance not only increase risk and instability for business, but they also deprive people of critical public services, well-functioning infrastructure and fundamental human rights. To prevent corruption and boost accountability, companies need to know who they are doing business with and financial institutions need to know their customers.

Citizens also need to understand who influences and benefits from public funds and law enforcement needs to hold individuals responsible for crime and corruption. The private sector has a critical role to play in ending corruption, not only because it’s good for business, but because it’s good for society. There are two key opportunities to do so: ending anonymous companies and cleaning up contracting.

Take Action

Companies can distinguish themselves as transparency leaders by voluntarily publishing their ownership data, supporting government efforts to build public registers of company ownership and contributing to OpenOwnership.org: the world’s first public global register of beneficial ownership.

Open contracting reduces corruption, enables fair competition and increases market access for business. Opening Up Public Procurement outlines why an open public procurement system means better societies and economies. Companies can be at the forefront of the push for open, cleaner contracting.

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Business can play a critical role by making clear to governments that more transparent markets is what they want and what they support. Business calls for governments to reform their public procurement systems to make them more transparent, fair and competitive have been growing.”

Bob Collymore (1958-2019), Former CEO, Safaricom PLC and Former B Team Leader

It’s no secret that anonymous companies are bad for society and bad for business. While it’s impossible to know who owns an anonymous company, it’s entirely possible to end them. Here’s how.